When it’s all boiled down, the fault lays squarely with the goats; the reason I never got to posting anything last week, that is. To be fair, it had already been a bit of a week but I was on target to get something…ANYthing (I never said it would be an enjoyable read) bashed out and posted right up until Shirley needed to visit the vets. And she needed the vets because of the goats. See, last week was one of THOSE weeks: too much stress and commitment and not enough time spent eating dinner together.

First, a bit of background: The Bean Counter had one of those work situations where the world – or certainly our corner of it – was visiting his baby (yes, that was our PM) but the squadrons of folk flying in from the corporate ivory towers were always going to get the golden glow. In short: a lot of stress for little glory. The Engineer had magnanimously put her hand up to organise something that was more than a little out of her wheelhouse because, well, no one else wanted to. Both these affairs required multiple lists, scary undertakings and quite a sizable dollop late night stressing and, on Thursday, both overnighted at the Urban Homestead – one pre and one post event. So there we were, Farm Girl and I, enjoying a roast lamb dinner of sorts as I had taken the meat out of the freezer before I’d worked out; 1. there’d be only two of us to enjoy it and; 2. the forecast, which turned out to be conservative, was for 28°C. Definitely not roast dinner weather. In view of this, Farm Girl had proposed having the meat and gravy in homemade burger buns and I agreed on the proviso she made the buns and we also had some greens with it. A deal was struck and there we were, gravy dripping from our chins, enjoying our roast lamb sandwiches when all hell suddenly sounded from the direction of the goat paddock. See, I told you it all came back to them.

The sheep getting used to the goats vacated quarters while the goats guess they can handle the new premises….for a while, right?!

“You stay here,” I graciously instructed Farm Girl (she had made the rolls, after all), “I’ll go and check it out.” And I headed to the paddock which, until recently, had been the home of the Tiny Housers. Earlier in the week, we had swapped the goats and sheep over when it became apparent the grass was getting too long in the goat paddock. As the temperature climbed the goats had discovered the deer-gates were perfect scratching posts, wonderful for dislodging the remains of their winter coats and I’m guessing this is how the staple securing the back fence latch had become dislodged. When I arrived I discovered two goats (Meredith and Amelia) shrieking agitatedly inside the paddock, the gate now in the shut position, and the remaining three goats (Marilyn, Sandra and Cristina) shrieking agitatedly in the back paddock. It didn’t take much to get them all back together again but that staple needed to be reattached – and fast! Farm Girl, answering my squawk, arrived tout de suite with hammer in hand and Boom! Bang! jobs and good’un.

Now, I know you’re all thinking about those two ratbag labradors that share our home and the unguarded roast and half eaten meals but you’d be wrong. Farm Girl is clever (more on that in Part Two) had the foresight to stash both these items out of harms way . Then why are they licking their chops and not meeting our eyes??

The remaining bread rolls!

Nooooooo…

Bread and dogs do not mix well. Colin, being a good 38 kg, handled his pilfered portion in a manner befitting one who has been there before and slunk off, literally in the dog house, to deal with his gurgling belly out of our sightlines. But Shirley, oh she was ill. She was sick all Thursday night, all Friday when the other two returned post vet visit, and very off colour for the entirety of the weekend.

Thankfully, she is now back to her bouncy self – maybe a little contrite; I’d like to say wiser for the event… but even I’m not that silly.